Cleaning out the Inbox-Basketball Passings

It's not often that there are enough basketball tributes to carry its own post, but sadly between the passings themselves and the time that I've been writing of late, this is one time that basketball can carry itself.

Goodbye to Wes Unseld at the age of 74.
Unseld, who should be considered "Mr.Bullet", played, coached, and served as general manager of the Baltimore/Capital/Washington Bullets/Wizards and never worked in basketball for another franchise.
Unseld won the Rookie of the Year and MVP as a rookie in Baltimore, and although it appears in retrospect to be a questionable decision for the MVP, Unseld's impact took the Bullets to the playoffs where they would lose to the eventual champion New York Knicks.
The Bullets would reach four NBA Finals with Unseld, winning the franchise's only league title in 1978 with a seven-game victory over the Seattle SuperSonics with Unseld selected as series MVP.
An undersized center at 6'7, Unseld was never a huge scorer in averaging 10.8 points for his career, but he averaged just under fifteen rebounds and was known as the best outlet passer in the game other than possibly Bill Walton.
Unseld would retire after the 1980-81 season with the team retiring his number 41 as he began the transition into the front office.
Unseld worked in the front office until he was named head coach midway through the 1987-88 season.
It shows how loved Unseld was by his fanbase that they didn't scream for his head after six and a half years of coaching and seven more years as general manager only produced two playoff berths that would result in first-round exits.


Goodbye to Jerry Sloan at the age of 78.
Best known as the long-time coach of the Utah Jazz, Sloan was a hard-nosed player that was selected by the Chicago Bulls in the 1966 expansion draft from Baltimore one year following the Bullets selecting Sloan in the first round of the 1965 draft.
Sloan made two All-Star teams as a Bull before knee problems forced him to retire in 1976 with the Bulls retiring his number in the following season.
Sloan coached the Bulls for parts of three seasons before being fired in 1982.
Sloan's second chance came in Utah in 1988 and despite not winning an NBA title, the Jazz won two conference titles, six division crowns, made nineteen playoff appearances and Sloan became the first coach to win 1,000 games with one team, Gregg Popovich has since joined him in that club.
Sloan ranks fourth in all-time coaching victories behind only Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, and Popovich.
An interesting note on Jerry Sloan- After retiring from the Bulls, Sloan was talked into accepting the head coaching job at his alma mater in Evansville by his college coach Branch McCracken.
Sloan decided to step down after five days and the entire Evansville team was killed in a plane crash in December 1977 as the Purple Aces were on their way to Tennessee for a game against Middle Tennessee State.

Goodbye to Eddie Sutton at the age of 84.
Sutton won over 800 games in his college coaching career and brought Arkansas (once) and Oklahoma State (twice) to Final Four spots.
Sutton also coached Kentucky to the Elite Eight and took Creighton to the NCAA's in his first college coaching stop, but despite his success at all of those schools. Sutton might be most remembered for the recruiting scandal that he was involved in at Kentucky that cost him his job with the infamous "Emery Envelope" stuffed with cash to the home of recruit Chris Mills as the tip of the iceberg.
Sutton coached teams to twenty or more wins on twenty-four occasions in his coaching career, but I still think his best job was at Arkansas, where in 1974, Sutton took over a decidedly non-hoops school that had not been to the NCAA tournament since 1958 and within three years had won 26 games, going undefeated in their conference (the now-defunct SWC) and a trip to the NCAA's.
The following season was better with 32 wins and a trip to the Final Four behind future pro's Sidney Moncrief and Ron Brewer.
Arkansas was set as a basketball school thereafter.

Goodbye to Mike Storen at the age of 84.
Storen, the father of ESPN's Hannah Storm, was a key part of the ABA's building process in running three teams during the life of the league and served for a brief time as the league commissioner.
Storen was part of the group that built the Indiana Pacers at the league's inception in 1967, hired coach Slick Leonard and signed the core of the team that would win three ABA titles.
After three seasons in Indiana, Storen would move to Kentucky as GM and a small ownership piece where he would sign Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore and build the base of the 1974-75 league champions.
Storen would become the league commissioner for a year before taking over the operations for the Memphis franchise, which was then named the Tams with Storen immediately changing the name to Sounds, which "sounded" better but didn't show results at the box office or the win column.
After working with the NBA on terms to merge the two leagues, Storen would be involved with the Atlanta Hawks for a short time before spending the remainder of his basketball days as commissioner of minor leagues such as the CBA and GBA.